Sam’s take on Catholic Action

I arrived at the Bodega just as Glaswegian Indie band Catholic Action had started their set. Their debut album ‘In Memory Of’ was released last month and their set was jam packed with songs from it.

Having 2 guitarists gave their poppy songs and riffs a bit more edge and also gave them a fuller sound than other bands of the same ilk that I have seen before. L.U.V has echoes of Franz Ferdinand, while ‘Propaganda’ and ‘Black and White’ sound like they would comfortable fit on a The Strokes album. Despite this obvious noughties indie influence, they still manage to sound fresh and other influences can be found throughout the album. ‘New Year’, reminded me of Green Day’s ‘Minority’ and is still stuck in my head as I write this review.

The set was broke up well with slower tracks including ‘Stars and Stripes’, of which they copied The Hives live stunt and completely froze for a while before heading back in to the song. They thanked main band Kagoule about three or four times during their set and with Cai of Kagoule wearing a Catholic Action shirt I got the impression that they are both really enjoy touring together. Definitely a band to watch out for in the future and it will be interesting to see what they do next.

As the place filled out, Nottingham’s very own Kagoule took to the stage. They kicked off things with a few songs from their upcoming album. The new songs sounded really good live, the vocal partnership between Cai and Lucy works well and the riffs are intricate. They then went into the classics from their debut album ‘Urth’, ‘Glue’, ‘Adjust The Way’, ‘Made Of Concrete’.

I saw these guys play at Y Not in 2016 and while they were good there, the Bodega seems like the perfect intimate setting for them to play at. They finished their set with fuzzy, powerful Joey Santiagoey ‘It Knows It’ before leaving the stage and coming back on five seconds later for their encore of crowd favourite ‘Gush’. A brilliant set from the best band in Nottingham right now.